E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

SURF has published a report about the Grand Challenges Learning Analytics & Open & Online Education, unfortunately the report is in Dutch. This report describes the possibilities of Learning Analytics in the field of Open and Online Education and what are the biggest challenges. Per challenges the 6 experts did a literature review and decided on what are the questions that have to be answered, are there national or international examples and what needs more research.

The six experts that contributed to this report are:

• Alan Berg, Program Manager Learning Analytics UvA, University of Amsterdam, Community Officer Apereo Learning Analytics Initiative
• Dr. Maartje van den Bogaard, educational advisor and researcher University of Leiden
• Dr. Hendrik Drachsler, Chairing Research Group on Learning Analytics, Leading FP7 project Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACEproject.eu)
• Drs. Renée Filius, programme manager Elevate University of Utrecht Medical Centre.
• Drs. Jocelyn Manderveld, project manager SURFnet
• Dr.ir. Robert Schuwer, lector OER, Fontys Hogeschool ICT

The five challenges these experts identified are:

1. What possiblities does Learning Analytics offer as accelerator of (design of) learning?
2. What are the requirements of a dashboard for instructors?
3. What can learning analytics contribute to the searchability of open educational resources?
4. What are the privacy and ethical issues in using learning analytics in open and online education?
5. What kind of infrastructure is needed to start with learning analytics in open and online education within your institution?

The report gives a good overview of the current state of learning analytics and gives good insight in the challenges we face. Off course you can debate if these challenges are really the biggest challenges. One of the questions I got was why a dashboard for instructors and not for learners?